I wish
by blzrgurl71
Summary: This story takes place in the not too distant future. David is working at Hummel Tire & Lube while he goes to school. He still loves Kurt.
1. Chapter 1

"Good morning Kurt"

"Good morning David, and how are you today?"

"Fine thank you, and you?"

"Fine"

There, he'd said all the things that he was supposed to say and he'd even said them politely. Not a trace of sarcasm or anger. _He wants polite…well I'd say he got it!_ After a moment or two of awkward silence he chanced a peek in his direction. _Damn. _Kurt was looking at him with that mildly, no…tolerantly amused look on his face. _He is so smug sometimes. _

"Really?" Kurt looked dubious. He sighed. "No not really, but how are we supposed to get this right if you question it? Every time I do it right you screw it up by questioning my answers!" He exhaled slowly, counted to 10, and looked at him. Big mistake. He always looks like he **actually** wants to know how I feel. "I'm tired, I don't feel well, I'd rather be at home…I'm not fine, but that is what people say when they're trying to be polite and that is what you asked for…right?" He went on knowing that Kurt was capable of being utterly relentless when he felt you were holding something back. "I'm supposed to sing one of the specials tomorrow at church and it's making me nervous so I'm not really good company right now. I'm completely freaked out, I don't think I can do it!" The object of his affection laughed softly and asked, "Then why do you keep doing this to yourself? Why not just say no, why agonize?"

He turned to face his coworker (and hopefully friend) for the first time that morning. "I have to do it, if I don't do these things to myself…if I don't make myself bigger, more _visible_ every once in a while…"

His voice trailed off. "I'm scared I'll just, just shrink down to nothing. I'll just blink right out of existence. No one can see me if I don't make them…so I have to make them."

Kurt looked amazed. "You can't actually believe that?"

The man could try the patience of a saint! "Of course I do…I've worked too long and too hard at being invisible. Now it just happens whether I'm trying to or not, so…every once in a while…I have to do something to make people see me." He just wished, just once, that the proud boy in front of him could understand.

"You couldn't be invisible if you tried David; your friends, your family, your customers…they all see you, I promise."

He put out his hand before he could stop himself but he did manage to avoid touching him. "Look maybe you think people see me but they don't, no one does. I'm David. I'm that guy at the counter, you know the funny one that tells those hilarious stories all the time…but I don't exist outside of this place. The minute they walk out the door? Poof! I disappear. It's that simple."

Kurt shook his head. "They wouldn't agree. They love you, you're the reason they come back. We wouldn't have half the customers that we do if you weren't here!"

"They don't love me, they love the idea of me. They own me and this place. When they come here, I'm here to entertain them. When they leave they forget me until the next time they need me." Dave just wanted to make him see. "Look, it's just like you and all the bloodletting you do on your days off…"

He questioned that, laughing. "So your saying you're an adrenaline junkie?"

"No! I'm saying that I'm doing what I have to do to prove to myself that I exist. I don't do it for the fear, I do it to be seen. If I don't do it…I have no proof." He finished his sentence weakly, hoping the other boy wouldn't notice his eyes filling.

"David, I know you exist. I see you, the real you, you don't have to torture yourself."

Damn him. He did notice, he's quite possibly the only observant guy in whole stinking world! "You have never seen _me_, believe me."

"Are you kidding, I've known you for years…I think I've seen you!" The smaller boy was openly scoffing now.

How can he sound so bewildered? "You haven't got a clue! You don't care what I look like and honestly, you don't care to see me anymore than any of those people! You've got some sort of image of me in your tiny little brain but since I know that's not the real me…I know you haven't seen me, not really!" He hoped he was throwing Kurt off the scent, at least a little.

"You think I wear this fat suit by accident, that I have some sort of portion control issue or that I just eat because I'm unhappy. No matter what I did people wouldn't stop looking at me, they kept seeing me for what I really was. Big, ugly, gay Karofsky. So? I got fat. No one likes to look at fat people, it's uncomfortable. Remember your 'chubby boy' comment? I'm living proof. Their eyes just slide right off of me and move on to something _prettier_, It took me a long time to figure that out and even longer to figure out how fat I had to be before everyone would just stop looking at me!" He paused and drew a breath. "Now nobody sees me, nobody cares, it's a lot easier this way. All I have to do is occasionally break out and be visible for a little while…just a little bit and then I'm good again. No fuss, no muss."

"You know I only called you chubby to hurt you the way you were hurting me, right? I know that you don't really like it this way and you know it, no one could be happy like that! I…"

The bell for the door chimed and one of the shop favorites walked through the door - David could've hugged the woman for her impeccable timing. "Hi, how can I help you today?"

She smiled and said, "Hi David, I have an appointment at 10:00 today"

David laughed and spoke slyly. "Oh really? Well, we'll just see about that!" Dave knew she was his 10am, he'd seen her name on the schedule that morning when he came in, this was just part of the game he played with his regulars.

"Dang! Looks like you do have an appointment today, so…I already have your paperwork ready if you could just sign here and uh…if I could have the keys please?" He turned back to Kurt. "So…you up?"

The fashionable young mechanic narrowed his eyes. "Yeah I'm up. Here ma'am, I'll take those keys, you just make yourself comfortable in the lobby here and I'll get your car in and going." Kurt walked away with the keys and clipboard but turned and walked backwards through the door into the shop "Not over" he mouthed at him "Not!"

Dave turned back to the customer and said brightly. "OK now where did we leave off last time you were here? Did I tell you about the time I fell down a hill? All the way down a hill. No? Well…"

…

_Wouldn't it be nice if it really went like that, he mused pen still in his hand, ink still wet on the page._

If only the real story weren't so boring; nice guy, not-so-nice guy, so not gonna get together at all. He's not looking, I'm not good-looking... you know the story.

He's polite, he talks to me, but sometimes I feel like I have to browbeat him into it. I feel like if I didn't remind him that it isn't polite to only ignore me in a room full of people, he wouldn't even look at me. The weird thing is, he seems to know I exist. He thinks of me when I'm not around, he tells me things that happened that he knows I'll think are funny. He spends an inordinate amount of time telling me that he's worried about my "health". Of course I can't help but use this against him. I tell him to stop calling me fat!

He worries that I'll never find someone though so maybe it's just self-preservation. Maybe he thinks that if I was dating someone I would stop loving him. But how can I move on when he listens to what I say? When months later he calls me on some esoteric piece of bullshit thing I said to him ONE time. He knows what color my eyes are (there are guys I've known my whole life that couldn't tell you that much about me…Az). He laughs at my jokes. Tells me not to call myself names. He makes me smile just looking at him, he doesn't even have to look back.

It can't be true love though... otherwise I'd be willing to let it go. He has a boyfriend. He's not interested in someone like me. He wants some sweet 'wifey' who never calls him on his bullshit. He reads, writes, sings...and boy can he carry on a conversation. He can't go an hour without hair product though, which frankly should make me drop it... but I can't. I know I probably only like him because he'll never like me back. I get that if he suddenly said yes, I would probably back-pedal like crazy.

It's just that whatever I do I'm hitting my head against a brick wall. If I let it go, I have nothing, not even hope. If I don't let it go... I'll end up bleeding, just like the last time I "fell in love" with him. Love isn't safe. It's not for cowards, wimps, or sissies. Love is hard, jagged, it makes you ache with the emptiness that is your insides. And that's when you _have_ love, you don't even want to hear about how it feels when you have none.

I have none.

I can't remember the last time I had any. I'm not sure that anyone has ever loved me, not best anyway. I know I didn't really love him last time, at least not at first. In my defense, love grows... if given the chance. I do always give it the chance, I can't seem to stop myself. I'm just too dumb to lay down and die I guess. I just don't know when to stop throwing good love after bad. I've loved Kurt Hummel so many times, but he's never loved me back.


	2. Chapter 2

It started with "The Kiss" of course. The first time he let me down...was the kiss. I know I shouldn't have done it, I get that, I'm not stupid. I know he was mad at me. I know I was being an ass, but did he have to look at me like I'd just kicked his puppy? Did he have to look at me like I was hideous, some kind of monster? I don't know what I thought would happen but it wasn't that. I was hurt and scared and lashing out and he was so very, very angry with me. All I could do was show him _why_ I was acting out, I mean it's not like I could tell him. I couldn't even say it out loud back then. Hell, I could barely even think it at that point. So when I saw the look on his face afterwards, I didn't know what else to do. I had to get out of there, away from him. I couldn't stand it. I knew then that what I wanted was never gonna happen even if I didn't know exactly what it was that I wanted. I think that even after running away though that I thought he _might _come after me, that he, he _might _care enough to at least make sure that I was okay, but he didn't. He just went on with his life like nothing had happened. Like we hadn't even kissed. The most important moment of my life...and it was nothing to him.

Of course you know what happened next. He let me down again. He just walked right up to the nearest good looking gay guy in Ohio and told him everything. My deepest darkest secret and he just told someone, worse it was someone he barely even knew. Then they get the bright idea to come to school and say it all...out loud...in front of people. Right there on the stairs, where anyone could've overheard. Preppy boy, I understand, he doesn't know me. He doesn't know how McKinley works. Kurt though, he knew and he obviously didn't care that he could've outed me to the entire school. He didn't think about what could have happened to me at all. I know it's not his responsibility to keep my secrets but for someone who would later tell me "I would never out you", he sure came awful close that day.

I realize now that what I did next _pretty much killed _my chances with him. It's kind of hard to come back from a death threat. I'm not making excuses, I know what I did was wrong. I just needed his attention so badly; I needed him to look at me...to _see_ me. And that is kind of what started this whole thing. I felt so invisible and back then I didn't want to be, not like now. If I could go back, I would. If I could talk to myself at that moment, the moment I decided that I needed his attention more than I needed his love, his trust, his respect, I would. I would tell myself that the fallout from that one decision would lose me everything I held dear, hell it almost lost me my life. I think that was one of my lowest moments...well you know, right up to the point where everyone found out that I was gay and then I tried to kill myself.

Finn coming up to me and talking to me after the whole "Thriller" thing shouldn't have upset me so much but after the high of the performance wore off and I started looking around for Kurt and all I could see was him being so wrapped up in Curly Sue that he hadn't even noticed me. All I wanted to do was hit something...preferably Kurt's boy toy. So..."I'm on top, why would I want to change things?" just _has _to come out of my mouth. The look on Finn's face, he knew how I felt about the dancing and singing, he knew that I'd loved it, but that boy was dumber than a box of rocks if he thought that I could handle seeing Kurt at Dalton with..._him_. Stupid, pretty, little prep school boy...everything that Kurt ever wanted and everything that I'm not. I'm such an idiot, I had got it into my head during all this that I could be what Kurt wanted, I liked singing and dancing and stupid Schue even said that I was good at it...I never thought that I could be...you know...good at something. Well, other football and being a jerk. I know the plan was to just pretend to be normal until I moved out and went to college. That way I wouldn't have to see the look on my parents faces when they found out that their son was a fag. I knew that they would hate me for it. I knew I'd never see them again but I just wanted to get through high school you know? I just wanted to be loved for just a little while longer, by someone…even if it was just my parents. All I had to do was stay on top at school and keep fooling my parents about what I really was for just two measly years; anyone could do that, right? Except me obviously, but singing with the glee club and the dancing and the zombie makeup...that felt good, real good. And Mr. Schue with his "If you took that energy you use bullying people and put it into this, you'd be one of the most talented guys in the school, just think about it."

This is of course how Finn found out that I liked being in Glee. Because after that, I just had to suggest another number and get all relaxed. It just made sense, it just...felt...right, somehow. This was how I could do it, get close to Kurt, show him who I really am; show him that I could be perfect for him. So of course we killed it, of course we shocked everyone with how good we really were and then the hammer falls and the stupid Puckheads had to go and slushy us, us...the football team. "Holy crap, they turned Karofsky gay!" was all it took to turn the whole thing around. Me and the rest of the guys walked out of that room knowing that if we didn't, we would **never** be able to show our faces at school again. Then they get the glee girls to play for the championship game and rub it in our faces. Puck comes into the locker room at half-time and convinces everybody...even Az, to be in the show and those assholes just left me there.

I went out onto the field after I grabbed all my gear to watch them all go down in flames. But no, everyone in the stands was freaking out, they loved it! Everyone was cheering and screaming and singing along. I _had_ to get out there on the field with them. It was amazing; I have never felt like that...so alive, so powerful, so...good. Beiste even slapped me and said "Welcome back, boy." with the proudest look on her face after the show. I had the biggest grin in the room. Of course we were pretty sure we were going to lose in the final few seconds but even with Finn's ridiculous idea (that actually worked) and going on to win the game...it didn't feel half as good as the show. So that puts us back at "What do you think, we all dance around together and win a football game and everything's gonna change? Glee clubs gonna be cool and we're all gonna sing hippy peace songs every morning?" Finn the moron coming back with "Maybe, I don't know, it's a start." I hate to be the one to break it him but I do it anyways. "No dude it's a finish. 'Kay, this is high school, people's memories for good stuff lasts about as long as their Facebook status."

"We got a chance to really change things here," he says and I counter back, "I just won the conference championship; I'm on top, why would I want to change things?" I'm sure that conversation had nothing to do with the fact that Kurt and Hair Gel danced past me after the game, nothing to do with the fact that he congratulated Finn and Puck...they both used to bully him, but he just walked right past me and...he let me down again. I just did something _dangerous_ for him; I just set myself up to fall **for him**. I left myself wide open for everyone in that school to see what a fag I am and what did I get? He didn't see me dancing, he didn't hear me singing, he didn't notice me at all.

Santana knows. I'm sure of it. She was all caught up in the fight last night but today, she just keeps looking at me. When Santana gets that look in her eye, the whole school knows to keeps their heads down. I've spent all day trying not to make eye contact. That girl is vicious. I don't know why she was even standing up for Eyebrows, maybe it was just for Kurt, she loves him. It's hard to tell where she's coming from sometimes, especially when she starts talking about the razor blades…you just wanna run. It's not my fault Kurt brought the hobbit to school again, not that he was much help last time either. Although this time he shoved me. I just had to push back…little man thinks he's so tough. Just because Kurt thinks he's all that and a bag of chips doesn't mean the rest of us do. As usual though, I'm the one running away.

I went back to the gym and spent the next hour pushing myself to the limit, testing myself, drawing the line and crossing it over and over again. Sometimes it makes me feel a little more normal. No one is there judging me and for once I can stop judging myself. Here in this room was the only place I could feel good about myself up until I was forced to join Glee Club. Not that I feel normal singing and dancing but I do feel good about it. It makes me feel happy, which isn't something I get to feel a whole lot. Lifting weights gives me some of that same rush, some of the same sense of power and it doesn't make people think I'm gay. This counts as a win in my book even if I do feel like someone beat the crap out of me afterwards. Although, standing in the shower is always the best and the worst part of the day and today was no exception. I love the heat and the water pounding me senseless, relaxing the muscles in my neck and back. I just wish it didn't give me so much time to think.


	3. Chapter 3

"So you taking a long weekend and getting married without saying a word to me about it...that was just you being spontaneous? You weren't purposely avoiding me and then _not_ telling me because you were trying to keep it a secret? Because it feels like it was on purpose Kurt, it feels like you did it to hurt my feelings..." "It wasn't about you David, it was about us just feeling like the time was right. We just finally decided to do it, I knew you would be upset that I got married but I thought you were mostly over _this_." "It isn't about you getting married you ass, it's about the fact that you say we're friends and then go and pull a dick move like this! We aren't friends! Those people, out there in the shop? They're your friends; want to know how I know? You told them. You told them you were getting married. You told them from the start, because they're your friends. I'm not, otherwise you would have told me too."

I try not to let myself feel too much for Kurt and I never feel that way about anyone else. I think about it sometimes, just going out and finding some random guy. I think about just walking up to someone and talking to him, flirting with him...just to see how it feels. I know that there's no one out there for me, I know that, but maybe someday, someone might...just...sleep with me or something. Maybe someone might kiss me, someday, maybe.

It's just really hard, knowing that I'm always going to be alone. I know it's for the best but it still hurts. Having the person you love standing right in front of you, it's a little like picking pieces of broken glass up off the floor. You try to be careful, you know it'll cut you if you're not…but no matter how slow you go, no matter how hard you try…that one little sliver just slices you to the bone. The next thing you know you're just watching yourself bleed out. You can't stop it; all you can do is watch and wait to see if this time is going to be the last time. Maybe this time, it won't stop and you can just let go. This time you can just…not "be" anymore. But you live; you don't die no matter how hard you try. If it were possible to just waste away from lack of caring about whether you live or die…you would have done it already. It's not that you **want** to continue on the way you are, it's that you're too stupid to lay down and die. It can't be easy, that's the main thing. Life sucks too much to ever let you down easy, no way it could just let it slide for once, let you off the hook. Nope. Not going to happen like that. Get used to it. I have. People don't like me, not because I used to be a bully. They don't like me because they can tell that deep, down inside...there's something wrong with me. People can smell "freak" a mile away, and I reek. That's why Hummel doesn't want me, that's why no one wants me.

The day had started out so well but then…Santana happened. I knew someone would figure it out eventually and considering Santana's almost unholy ability to know when someone was hiding something I'm not surprised it was her. I tried to bluff my way out of it but she just knew. She said she caught me staring but I didn't even remember looking at Sam's ass. I tried telling her I was just checking out his jeans but I'm pretty sure she saw right through that. Then came the kicker, she tells me exactly how my life's gonna go down if I don't do something about it now but she says it's okay. She says that it's fine that I won't find myself until I'm older. I might whine about how she did it but she's the first person to find out that didn't tell me to change first thing. Kurt did, Blaine did, but Santana? She said "I accept that about you." Next thing I know we're sitting in my room watching "It Gets Better" videos on YouTube and we're both crying although if she finds out I told you that…she will cut me like a bitch.

Monday we go talk to Figgins and start up the "Bully Whips", I hate that name…She thought of it though, so I guess I'm stuck with it. Then comes the hard part. First bully we run into? Z, of course. Why not? Fuck my life. He keeps looking at me like he's waiting for the punch line or like I'm gonna change my mind and start **helping** him steal Brett's pants. Why does he even want Brett's pants, not like they're gonna fit _him_…he's just being a jerk and he knows it. A couple of days later and Santana thinks we're ready to go talk to the Glee club. It goes down pretty much exactly the way I thought it would. Gleeks are all about inclusion except when it comes to the Jocks. They talk a lot of shit about me but I just stay calm and say everything that Santana and I worked out the night before. I say I'm sorry and I talk about feeling bad for putting them through everything but most of all I make sure they know how sorry I am about everything with Kurt. I let all the hurt show in my eyes. "Satan" says it's the only way the Gleeks will go for it, you know, if they can tell how sorry I am. So I make sure they can see it. Then we hit 'em right between the eyes, she walks down to stand beside me and blows their little musical minds. They think we're in love. This is all part of the whole "Who me? Gay?" plan. I didn't think they would fall for it, but they do…morons, all of them. I know they're Kurt's friends but jeez, gullible much? I know that part of it is the fact that they would never consider the alternative. No way would they ever suspect that Kurt is the reason I'm doing all this. I don't want Prom King; I just don't want people knowing that I'm gay. Her plan to rule the school is strictly camouflage. I just want to survive and try to make up for all the crap I pulled on Kurt and this is pretty much all I can do to fix what I did.

Mr. Hummel is pissed. I don't blame him a bit but he scares the crap out of me. Sometimes when you look at Burt and you look at Kurt you don't really see the resemblance. Maybe just the eyes, they aren't the same color but they still look the same somehow. Then you see them pissed and you realize they look **so** much alike. He's actually kind of right, I am the reason the numbers are so low, but he doesn't realize how hard I'm coming down on the jocks. He has no idea how hard it is to rein them in. He doesn't know how much worse it would be if I weren't there, keeping them down, keeping them quiet. There's a fine line between me not letting them hurt people and them figuring out that it's me that's scared I might get hurt. If they knew…it would all be over. They might accidentally go too far with Kurt but if they find out about me, they will end me and it won't be an accident.

I phase out for a bit and when I come back Burt's yelling about how I was gonna kill Kurt. I half-heartedly speak up but I can tell when I look at Kurt that he knows it's only a token protest. He asks for a minute alone and when they all leave. He lets me down again. I googled "Eve Harrington", just because I'm gay does _not_ mean I have to watch that shit. He acts like there's only one kind of gay and I guess until he pushed I thought so too, I know better by this time though. I watched those videos, not all of them looked like him. Some of them didn't look like either of us to be honest; some of those guys were even more "girly" than Kurt. Although some of them looked like they'd make me look femme, hell some of the **girls** made me look femme. I suppose that's part of the problem, all us freaks and geeks we should stick together but we even isolate ourselves from each other. There's a lot more of us than them, why are we fighting about who gets persecuted more? If we ever got our acts together, we could take over the world, too bad we're too busy fighting amongst ourselves. I said all the appropriate things to Kurt but we both knew it was an uneasy truce at best. I'm just gonna have to show him how much I mean this, I wish he wouldn't try so hard to piss me off though. He knows I'm scared he's going to out me and he still keeps threatening me with it. I just wish he would either do it and get it over with or just shut up about it. I'm a work in progress, what can I say.

All this talk about Kurt letting me down, I guess it's time tell you about how I let myself down. Santana comes to me nearly in tears about the assignment and Britt being mad at her for not wearing the shirt she made her. I don't think she knew that Britt was going to make her a shirt. She'd made one for each of us, hers said "bitch". I told her mine should say "scared" but she said "you weren't born that way, people taught you to be like that." I guess she's right, but in that case, maybe her shirt says the wrong thing on it too. We sat way up high in the auditorium so the rest of the Gleeks wouldn't see us. She wore the right shirt. I put a sweater on and my puffy vest…just in case. One step forward, two steps back.

Patrolling the halls started to get a little annoying. Nothing was happening anymore but I knew it wouldn't last so I tried to stay on my game. Santana was not helping. She kept making up all these stupid rules about how we had to talk on the walkie-talkies. I'm pretty sure she was making most of it up. Not the "over" thing though, I know that was real, I just liked ticking her off. Then I'm dropping Kurt off at French class one day and he starts talking to me, really talking to me. He kept looking at me like he understood what I was going through. He said that I didn't have to come out yet, he said that he could "feel my pain" and I just lost it. I couldn't stop crying and telling him over and over how sorry I was. Then a girl in Calc. class walked by and I had to suck it up and blow it off like it didn't mean anything but when she was far enough away I said "Remember you wait for me here all right?" and he actually looked like he would. He looked at me like he would wait for me. That was the first time that I realized that I loved him.

It may sound cliché, but that night? I literally felt like my heart might beat right out of my chest. I couldn't believe those jerks had done this to us. It made me feel sick. I didn't understand why they couldn't just leave it alone…who cared if Hummel had a boyfriend…not me.

And I don't know where Kurt gets off acting like this bullshit prom king and queen thing was something they did to _him_. To me, it kind of feels like they did this to _us_. I don't understand why he's pushing so hard, why he would even say that to me? He can't think that **this** is the appropriate time to come out. Not after everything he said last week. Dancing together in front of the whole school…not a good idea. I'm not ready for this kind of pressure. I'm not strong like him; I don't have anyone who would stand up for me like he does. He has his boyfriend and his family and everyone in Glee, I don't even have him. I look at him and whisper "I can't" and here I am, running again.


End file.
